The Navy’s chief of operations, in San Diego last week, defended the service’s embattled new vessel class, the littoral combat ship.

“LCS is going to continue as a program,” said Adm. Gary Roughead, the Navy’s top officer. “I think we’ve got a good ship on our hands.”

The 400-foot craft was intended to be a fast and nimble ship for shallow, coastal waters – and inexpensive. The first 12 will call San Diego home.

But despite initial cost projections of $278 million ($220 million in 2005 dollars), the first two ships have run $570 million to $626 million, according to a June Congressional Budget Office report.

Add in outfitting, post-delivery and design completion costs, and the price tags rise to $740 million and $770 million, the CBO said. On average, the congressional budget group expects the first 50 ships will cost $500 million each.

Freedom comes to town

/ Photo courtesy Lockheed Martin

The nation's first Littoral Combat Ship, Freedom (LCS 1) arrives in San Diego on Friday, April 23, 2010. The agile 377-foot Freedom is designed to defeat littoral, or close-to-shore, threats and provide access and dominance in coastal water battle-space.

The nation's first Littoral Combat Ship, Freedom (LCS 1) arrives in San Diego on Friday, April 23, 2010. The agile 377-foot Freedom is designed to defeat littoral, or close-to-shore, threats and provide access and dominance in coastal water battle-space. (/ Photo courtesy Lockheed Martin)

Adding to the Navy’s problems, the first ship, the Freedom, formed a crack in the hull. The second, the Independence, developed what’s been called “aggressive corrosion.” The Navy still hasn't decided which of two styles -- the Freedom, a monohull, or the Independence, a trimaran -- it will choose for the long run.

The Senate Armed Services Committee had harsh words for the program recently. “I’m sure you share my frustration that following an $8 billion taxpayer investment in the (littoral) program, the Navy continues to lack a single ship that is operationally effective or reliable,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said at a committee hearing last month.

The Navy littoral combat ship Independence

The Navy littoral combat ship Independence

The Navy littoral combat ship Independence

Roughead said that the littorals have fewer growing pains than some of the Navy’s past ships.

“I have introduced several classes of ships in my career, and we had far bigger problems than that,” said the admiral, who retires next month.

“If you look at how long we spent in development of previous ships classes -- the (destroyer) DDG-51, and say the Ticonderoga-class cruisers, they were in development for 12 to 14 years,” he said. “So that means you are paying money into developing that ship for that period of time. We did LCS in about five.”

The littoral will have removable “modules” that allow it to do anti-submarine, mine countermeasure or anti-ship missions, based on which is installed at the time.

Critics say that means the ship will be limited to doing only one thing at a time.

That’s not the way Roughead looks at it. He sees more of a quick-change operation. The Navy can stock spare modules at strategic ports, or airlift them in via large C-17 cargo planes.

“Within 24 hours, I can shift from a very good mine countermeasures ship to a very good anti-submarine ship,” he said. “I submit I can change the capabilities in a region faster than if I have to sail in other capabilities.”

The new ship class is supposed to replace three long-serving vessels: the frigate, coastal patrol ship and the mine countermeasures ship.

Roughead talked about where the littoral fits into overall U.S. ship strategy. At what he described as a still-low price, the Navy can buy enough ships to cover more ocean.

“The LCS will afford us opportunities to operate in places we haven’t been able to go because of its draft and speed,” he said. “With the numbers we are able to buy, at the cost we are buying them, we couldn’t do it with any other ship class.”